Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 159: Golden Wind and Jade Dew Art

The space was an anomaly—somewhere between a constructed chamber and a natural limestone cavern.

It was vast, yet the air felt compressed. Along the irregular walls, figures sat in the shadows, almost every available spot occupied by a cultivator. Most emitted the fluctuations of the Qi Refining stage, and before them lay scattered assortments of goods.

At first glance, it resembled a rural country fair.

Yet, despite the crude presentation, the variety of goods was staggering. A casual sweep of the eyes revealed Magical Artifacts, Talismans, Pills, jade slips, puppets, spiritual materials, Spirit Chow, and even caged spirit beasts. It covered nearly every category of Supplies a cultivator might need.

Wang Ba’s gaze habitually drifted toward the spirit beasts, lingering for a split second before moving on. They were common breeds—creatures he already had stocking his Storage Bag.

A quick circuit of the area confirmed a suspicious trend: the stalls sold almost exclusively Low Grade items. There was scarcely a Top Grade or second-tier treasure in sight.

Suspicion coiled in his gut, but recalling Zhu Jianyi’s earlier briefing, he suppressed his unease.

Zhu Jianyi, having scanned the room, made a beeline for a corner stall. He purchased a jade hand-ornament from a silent old cultivator for two Spirit Stones. Then, he moved to a female cultivator’s mat and spent three stones on a simple comb.

He placed these seemingly random items, along with his Market Entry Token, into a separate, empty Storage Bag. Finally, he approached a middle-aged man selling artifacts.

“Fellow Daoist,” Zhu Jianyi asked, “what is the price for this artifact?”

“This is a second-tier Low Grade treasure,” the man replied with a genial smile. “A mere 1,260 Spirit Stones.”

Zhu Jianyi immediately began to haggle. To Wang Ba’s eyes, the entire negotiation felt performative—a scripted dance rather than a genuine transaction. Eventually, they struck a deal.

Zhu Jianyi handed over the Storage Bag containing the ornament, the comb, and the token.

The middle-aged cultivator peeked inside, his expression unreadable. He nodded imperceptibly and slid a different Storage Bag across the table. Zhu Jianyi took it and immediately passed it to Wang Ba.

The merchant’s gaze shifted to Wang Ba, sharp with wariness. Simultaneously, Wang Ba felt the weight of several hidden glances from the shadows pressing against his back.

“Senior,” Zhu Jianyi projected via voice transmission.

Wang Ba remained impassive. He swept the bag with his Divine Sense. Inside lay a single sheet of paper, shimmering with a peculiar energy—an Inner Demon Oath. It required only a soul signature to activate.

He scanned the terms swiftly. It was a standard non-disclosure agreement: guarantee no ill intent toward the Exquisite Ghost Market, ensure secrecy, etc. The penalty for violation was death and the dissipation of the Dao.

After verifying the paper held no hidden curses or traps, Wang Ba signed it with a trace of his spirit.

Fwoosh.

The paper ignited, burning away into nothingness in seconds.

As the ash settled, the hostility in the merchant’s eyes receded. He looked at Wang Ba and uttered a phrase that sounded like nonsense:

“First meeting, three each.”

Zhu Jianyi, however, nodded as if this explained everything. He grabbed Wang Ba’s arm. “Let’s go. To the array.”

Going back already? Wang Ba frowned internally but followed.

Zhu Jianyi fed Spirit Stones into the teleportation array in the center of the room, adjusted the coordinates, and pulled Wang Ba onto the platform.

Space twisted. The world blurred and reformed.

When Wang Ba’s vision cleared, he was surprised to find they were not back in the water prison. They were in another cavern—another market.

But unlike the noisy, chaotic fair above, this place was steeped in a heavy, respectful silence. The crowd was thinner, but the aura was suffocatingly stronger. Scattered among the Qi Refining cultivators were several figures radiating the pressure of Foundation Establishment.

“This,” Zhu Jianyi whispered, “is the true Exquisite Ghost Market.”

“The rule is simple: you must be guided by an acquaintance and sign the Inner Demon Oath to gain entry,” Zhu continued. “The phrase he spoke—’First meeting, three each’—was the variable cipher for the teleportation node. It changes every time… without the correct code, the array won’t bring you here.”

Wang Ba nodded slowly. The first market was a filter—a buffer zone to weed out spies and the uncommitted. The true market was hidden behind a secondary teleportation jump. It was no wonder the Sects had failed to eradicate this place for so long.

Zhu Jianyi’s theater with the comb and ornament had simply been the method to purchase the code.

Wang Ba sighed inwardly at the plight of the Rogue Cultivator. They appeared free, roaming the world at will, but their path was paved with thorns. Incomplete inheritances, scarce resources, and suppression by the great Sects forced them into these clandestine, paranoid networks just to trade for basics.

I wonder if the situation is the same in the State of Chen, he mused.

Pushing the thought aside, Wang Ba began to explore, eager to see what a high-end black market offered. Zhu Jianyi followed meekly, head bowed, afraid to stray more than a few steps from his temporary protector.

Wang Ba halted before a stall that smelled of musk and wild fur.

“This Mountain Moving Ape… what’s the price?”

Several beasts were chained to the stall. Prominent among them was a muscular ape, its fur matted and eyes burning with feral aggression. Seeing Wang Ba, it bared yellowed fangs and let out a low, vibrating growl.

Wang Ba ignored the threat. He assessed the creature clinically. Not yet an adult. Aura indicates First-Tier Top Grade.

It was a stark contrast to his own ape back home, which spent its days meditating like a monk. This one was violent, irritable—a true wild beast.

“Forty. Middle Grade Spirit Stones.”

The stall owner was a young-looking man leaning back in a chair, radiating the lazy confidence of the Foundation Establishment realm. He barely glanced at Wang Ba.

The price was steep. At the Taosheng Market, Wang Ba had haggled a similar ape down to sixty. He hadn’t expected the “wholesale” price here to be so attractive.

Wang Ba kept his face mask-still. “Fellow Daoist, do you have other Mountain Moving Apes?”

The young cultivator raised an eyebrow, sensing a serious buyer. He sat up straighter. “Do you have specific requirements? I have a few more in stock.”

Wang Ba’s heart jumped. He had wanted to breed these apes for a long time. The species was a perfect balance of offense and defense, possessing high natural talent, limited only by their low starting bloodline grade. If he could cultivate their bloodline… they would become a terrifying force.

“Young females would be best,” Wang Ba said evenly.

“Naturally,” the youth replied. “My stock is all young. They’ve been fed premium fodder. Once they reach adulthood, their probability of surviving the Minor Heavenly Thunder Tribulation is significantly higher than wild specimens.”

Wang Ba remained noncommittal.

He wasn’t a fool. Between the library of the Myriad Beast Department and his own relentless biological experiments on Spirit Poultry and tortoises, his understanding of beastology likely rivaled the former Department Head.

The youth wasn’t lying, but he was missing the point. Nutrition was vital, yes, but for a Mountain Moving Ape, the key to unlocking Potential lay in combat and survival stress. The hardship of the wild stimulated their bloodline far more than a full belly.

Of course, my own ape is an exception, Wang Ba thought dryly. That one is practically cheating.

“From your tone, you have a stock,” Wang Ba said, adopting the persona of a researcher. “I am developing a specific spell that requires this species as a catalyst. If the quantity isn’t too large, I will take them all. Perhaps we can discuss a bulk discount?”

“All of them?” The cultivator blinked, his lethargy vanishing. “That is… excellent. Heh. I have five more in the back. Including this one, that’s six—two males, four females. If you take the lot… 38 Middle Grade Spirit Stones per head.”

38 times 6… 228.

Wang Ba calculated his liquid assets. He was short.

“I don’t have enough stones on hand,” Wang Ba said. “Do you accept barter in Supplies?”

“Supplies are often better than stones,” the youth agreed.

Wang Ba began withdrawing items he deemed valuable to a Foundation Establishment cultivator. To his surprise, the merchant’s eyes lit up at a container of Spirit Poultry Essence.

This wasn’t soup; it was a biological condensate. One basin represented the extracted vitality of nearly a thousand Low Grade Spirit Poultry, purified and reduced. In terms of raw market value, factoring in the labor of a Spirit Chef, it was worth twenty to thirty Middle Grade stones.

For Wang Ba, however, the cost was mostly labor.

He traded two basins of the essence for two apes. He then added several Second-Tier Talismans looted from the Jingyue Mansion cultivators to cover a third ape. He paid the balance in stones and swept the six apes into his Spirit Beast Bag.

“If I acquire more, I will contact you,” the merchant said, handing over a transmission talisman.

Wang Ba accepted it gladly. Primate breeding was complex; unlike chickens, close-kin propagation led to rapid genetic degradation. He needed a wide genetic pool.

He continued his patrol. The market was flooded with Pills and Talismans, but the quality was disappointing. Without the systematic inheritance of a major Sect like the Heavenly Gate, these Rogue Cultivators produced goods that were functional but crude.

Just as he was about to dismiss the Exquisite Ghost Market as overhyped, he stopped.

A stall cluttered with jade slips, golden pages, and rotting scrolls caught his eye.

“Peerless techniques! World-shaking spells! The Hundred Crafts!” the stall keeper, a withered old man, barked like a street hawker. “Everything relies on fate, Fellow Daoist!”

It smelled like a scam.

Wang Ba squatted down anyway. His respect for knowledge was absolute. To his surprise, the “scam” was legitimate. The stall held several genuine curiosities.

He found a Canglang Sword Art. Like the Ren Water Four-Defense Art, it used Water as a base but integrated other elements to create hybrid damage. It could be cultivated all the way to Golden Core.

Expensive, though. And extreme. It required a permanent lock on one’s cultivation path. The price was one hundred Middle Grade stones, non-negotiable. Wang Ba passed.

He spent a hundred Low Grade stones clearing out the “junk” pile—travelogues, research notes, and miscellaneous crafting guides. These were deemed worthless by combat-obsessed rogues, but to Wang Ba, they were data.

Then, he saw it.

A spell titled Golden Wind and Jade Dew Art.

The name sounded poetic, almost like a cultivation method, but it was a peculiar Second-Tier spell.

Its mechanic was fascinating: it required the user to take a First-Tier Metal-attribute offensive spell they had already mastered to Perfection, and invert it into a Second-Tier Water-attribute technique.

It utilized the elemental cycle of ‘Metal Generates Water.’

Wang Ba’s mind instantly went to the Golden Wind Swift Arrow Art.

He had bought that spell out of ignorance. It was a powerful Metal spell, but his affinity with it had been mediocre, and its damage output was average. He had shelved it.

But now? It was the perfect key for this lock.

He bought the jade slip immediately for twenty-some Middle Grade stones. It was the original copy; a transcript would have been cheaper, but he didn’t care.

Once I grind the Golden Wind Swift Arrow Art to Perfection using the Metal Spiritual Iron Sand I looted, I can convert it. I’ll instantly have a Second-Tier trump card.

His only regret was that it was an offensive spell. He would have preferred a shield.

Satisfied with his haul, Wang Ba turned to leave the market.

Just as he took a step, a voice rang out from nearby, laced with shock.

“Zhu Jianyi? What are you doing here?”